OREANDA-NEWS. June 08, 2009. Within the XIII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee, Gazprom met with Dr. Bernhard Reutersberg, Chairman of the Executive Board, E.ON Ruhrgas.

The negotiations participants discussed the main issues related to promoting the Russian-German cooperation in the energy sector and gave a positive assessment of the progress in joint projects implementation.

Summarizing the meeting results Alexey Miller pointed out that “Our counterparts from E.ON Ruhrgas have once again expressed their concern over Ukraine’s capability to timely pay for Russian gas and to ensure failsafe hydrocarbons transit to Europe. A nearly monopolistic position of the country in transmitting blue fuel from Russia helps us to understand why the problems of Naftogaz have become Europe’s headache.

We have discussed this matter today with our German counterparts and come to the conclusion that all the market players – supplier, transit country, consumers – should elaborate a cooperation plan to ensure reliable energy supply to Europe.

The plan should provide for such short-term objectives as searching for the sources of finance to pay for the gas consumed by Ukraine and for the gas to be injected into the country’s underground storage facilities, as well as to upgrade the Ukrainian gas transmission system.

Among the long-term objectives are intensification of the efforts made by Russia and the EU to implement the Nord Stream and South Stream projects aimed at ensuring reliable natural gas supply for decades, thus, anticipating any conflicts among the energy industry players,” said Alexey Miller.